Book I read: Byzantium_The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

書名：Byzantium:The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire
作者：Judith Herrin

大綱：Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism--gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire's millennium--long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium--what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today.
Bringing the latest scholarship to a general audience in accessible prose, Herrin focuses each short chapter around a representative theme, event, monument, or historical figure, and examines it within the full sweep of Byzantine history--from the foundation of Constantinople, the magnificent capital city built by Constantine the Great, to its capture by the Ottoman Turks.
She argues that Byzantium's crucial role as the eastern defender of Christendom against Muslim expansion during the early Middle Ages made Europe--and the modern Western world--possible. Herrin captivates us with her discussions of all facets of Byzantine culture and society. She walks us through the complex ceremonies of the imperial court. She describes the transcendent beauty and power of the church of Hagia Sophia, as well as chariot races, monastic spirituality, diplomacy, and literature. She reveals the fascinating worlds of military usurpers and ascetics, eunuchs and courtesans, and artisans who fashioned the silks, icons, ivories, and mosaics so readily associated with Byzantine art.
An innovative history written by one of our foremost scholars, Byzantium reveals this great civilization's rise to military and cultural supremacy, its spectacular destruction by the Fourth Crusade, and its revival and final conquest in 1453.

拜占庭；這名字喚起一個金碧輝煌、耀動多變的想像，散發著不同於傳統西歐的中古風情。作者Judith Herrin藉由這本特別的著作掀開一個豐富中古文明的面紗。這本書不使用傳統編年體的編撰方式來敘述拜占庭帝國近千年的歷史；而是追尋那些建立拜占庭文明的基礎課題、對今日的重要影響，一個主題一個章節。

作者從代表性的主題、事件、遺址、歷史人物去探討中古拜占庭帝國的各個面向，用較易了解的筆法帶領著學者到一般讀者認識這個歷史，說著那些君士坦堡、君士坦丁大帝的王國、鄂圖曼土耳其入侵的故事.....。

作者她認為就是拜占庭帝國的鞏固，阻止了回教版圖對基督教世界的擴張，才成就了歐洲-現代西方世界的文明。去探視拜占庭社會與文化的觀點，複雜的帝國宮廷，到絕美代表權力中心的聖蘇菲教堂（Hagia Sophia）。除此之外，吸引人的課題還包括，那些軍事戰爭下的勝利霸主、戰敗苦力、被閹割的服侍者、隨著軍隊而來的妓女、還有各種的工匠，用絲綢、肖像、象牙和鑲嵌馬賽克成就了拜占庭藝術；也介紹了羅馬戰車在拜占庭帝國內的競技、基督教修道院的精神與修養、外交策略與文學，在在都顯現了拜占庭帝國豐富文化。

作者使用創新的筆法寫歷史，也是一位知名的拜占庭Byzantium研究學者。